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Dogs In Mesoamerican Folklore And Myth
Dogs have occupied a powerful place in Mesoamerican folklore and myth since at least the Classic Period right through to modern times. A common belief across the Mesoamerican region is that a dog carries the newly deceased across a body of water in the afterlife. Dogs appear in underworld scenes painted on Maya pottery dating to the Classic Period and even earlier than this, in the Preclassic, the people of Chupícuaro buried dogs with the dead.Read & Gonzalez 2000, p.172. In the great Classic Period metropolis of Teotihuacan, 14 human bodies were deposited in a cave, most of them children, together with the bodies of three dogs to guide them on their path to the underworld. The Xoloitzcuintli is a hairless dog from Mesoamerica. Archaeological evidence has been found in the tombs of the Colima, Mayan, Toltec, Zapotec, and Aztec people dating the breed to over 3500 years ago. Long regarded as guardians and protectors, the indigenous peoples believed that the Xolo would safeguard t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aztecs
The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl, Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica from the 14th to the 16th centuries. Aztec culture was organized into city-states (''altepetl''), some of which joined to form alliances, political confederations, or empires. The Aztec Empire was a confederation of three city-states established in 1427: Tenochtitlan, city-state of the Mexica or Tenochca; Texcoco (altepetl), Texcoco; and Tlacopan, previously part of the Tepanec empire, whose dominant power was Azcapotzalco (altepetl), Azcapotzalco. Although the term Aztecs is often narrowly restricted to the Mexica of Tenochtitlan, it is also broadly used to refer to Nahuas, Nahua polities or peoples of central Pre-Columbian Mexico, Mexico in the preh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aztec Mythology
Aztec mythology is the body or collection of myths of the Aztec civilization of Central Mexico. The Aztecs were Nahuatl-speaking groups living in central Mexico and much of their mythology is similar to that of other Mesoamerican cultures. According to legend, the various groups who were to become the Aztecs arrived from the north into the Anahuac valley around Lake Texcoco. The location of this valley and lake of destination is clear – it is the heart of modern Mexico City – but little can be known with certainty about the origin of the Aztec. There are different accounts of their origin. In the myth the ancestors of the Mexica/Aztec came from a place in the north called Aztlan, the last of seven ''nahuatlacas'' (Nahuatl-speaking tribes, from ''tlaca'', "man") to make the journey southward, hence their name "Azteca." Other accounts cite their origin in Chicomoztoc, "the place of the seven caves," or at Tamoanchan (the legendary origin of all civilizations). The Mexic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xibalba
(), roughly translated as "place of fright", is the name of the underworld (or quc, Mitnal) in Maya mythology, ruled by the Maya death gods and their helpers. In 16th-century Verapaz, the entrance to Xibalba was traditionally held to be a cave in the vicinity of Cobán, Guatemala. Cave systems in nearby Belize have also been referred to as the entrance to Xibalba. In some Maya areas, the Milky Way is viewed as the road to Xibalba. Inhabitants Xibalba is described in the ''Popol Vuh'' as a court below the surface of the Earth associated with death and with twelve gods or powerful rulers known as the Lords of Xibalba. The first among the Maya death gods ruling Xibalba were Hun-Came ("One Death") and Vucub-Came ("Seven Death"), though Hun-Came is the senior of the two. The remaining ten Lords are often referred to as demons and are given commission and domain over various forms of human suffering: to cause sickness, starvation, fear, destitution, pain, and ultimately death ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maya Hero Twins
The Maya Hero Twins are the central figures of a narrative included within the colonial Kʼicheʼ document called Popol Vuh, and constituting the oldest Maya myth to have been preserved in its entirety. Called Hunahpu and Xbalanque in the Kʼicheʼ language, the Twins have also been identified in the art of the Classic Mayas (200–900 AD). The twins are often portrayed as complementary forces. The complementary pairings of life and death, sky and earth, day and night, Sun and Moon, among multiple others have been used to represent the twins. The duality that occurs between male and female is often seen in twin myths, as a male and female twin are conceptualized to be born to represent the two sides of a single entity. The Twin motif recurs in many Native American mythologies; the Maya Twins, in particular, could be considered as mythical ancestors to the Maya ruling lineages. The Hero Twins in word and image After being invited to Xibalba by One-Death and Seven-Death, the L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
K'iche' People
K'iche', K'ichee', or Quiché may refer to: *K'iche' people of Guatemala, a subgroup of the Maya *K'iche' language, a Maya language spoken by the K'iche' people **Classical K'iche' language, the 16th century form of the K'iche' language *Kʼicheʼ kingdom of Qʼumarkaj, a pre-Columbian state in the Guatemalan highlands See also *Quiche (other) Quiche is a kind of pie with a savory custard filling; ''quiche lorraine'' is one variant. Quiche may also refer to: * Kishu or Quiche of ''Tokyo Mew Mew'', a manga and anime character * Quiche Lorraine is a minor character in ''Bloom County'' (c ... {{disambig Language and nationality disambiguation pages ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Popul Vuh
''Popol Vuh'' (also ''Popol Wuj'' or ''Popul Vuh'' or ''Pop Vuj'') is a text recounting the mythology and history of the Kʼicheʼ people, one of the Maya peoples, who inhabit Guatemala and the Mexican states of Chiapas, Campeche, Yucatan and Quintana Roo, as well as areas of Belize, Honduras and El Salvador. The ''Popol Vuh'' is a foundational sacred narrative of the Kʼicheʼ people from long before the Spanish conquest of the Maya. It includes the Mayan creation myth, the exploits of the Hero Twins Hunahpú and Xbalanqué, and a chronicle of the Kʼicheʼ people. The name "Popol Vuh" translates as "Book of the Community" or "Book of Counsel" (literally "Book that pertains to the mat", since a woven mat was used as a royal throne in ancient Kʼicheʼ society and symbolised the unity of the community). It was originally preserved through oral tradition until approximately 1550, when it was recorded in writing. The documentation of the ''Popol Vuh'' is credited to the 18th-cen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maya Codices
Maya codices (singular ''codex'') are folding books written by the pre-Columbian Maya civilization in Maya hieroglyphic script on Mesoamerican bark paper. The folding books are the products of professional scribes working under the patronage of deities such as the Tonsured Maize God and the Howler Monkey Gods. Most of the codices were destroyed by conquistadors and Catholic priests in the 16th century. The codices have been named for the cities where they eventually settled. The Dresden codex is generally considered the most important of the few that survive. The Maya made paper from the inner bark of a certain wild fig tree, '' Ficus cotinifolia''. This sort of paper was generally known by the word ''huun'' in Mayan languages (the Aztec people far to the north used the word '' āmatl'' for paper). The Maya developed their ''huun''-paper around the 5th century, which is roughly the same time that the codex became predominant over the scroll in the Roman world. Maya paper was mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guatemala
Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by Honduras; to the southeast by El Salvador and to the south by the Pacific Ocean. With an estimated population of around million, Guatemala is the most populous country in Central America and the 11th most populous country in the Americas. It is a representative democracy with its capital and largest city being Nueva Guatemala de la Asunción, also known as Guatemala City, the most populous city in Central America. The territory of modern Guatemala hosted the core of the Maya civilization, which extended across Mesoamerica. In the 16th century, most of this area was conquered by the Spanish and claimed as part of the viceroyalty of New Spain. Guatemala attained independence in 1821 from Spain and Mexico. In 1823, it became part of the Fe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kaminaljuyu
Kaminaljuyu (pronounced ) is a Pre-Columbian site of the Maya civilization that was primarily occupied from 1500 BC to AD 1200. Kaminaljuyu has been described as one of the greatest of all archaeological sites in the New World by Michael Coe, although its remains today – a few mounds only – are far less impressive than other Maya sites more frequented by tourists. When first mapped scientifically (by E. M. Shook over a period of decades from the 1930s on), it comprised some 200 platforms and pyramidal mounds, at least half of which were created before the end of the Preclassic period (250 AD). Debate continues about the size, scale, and degree by which, as an economic and political entity, it integrated both the immediate Valley of Guatemala and the Southern Maya area. The known parts of Kaminaljuyu lie on a broad plain beneath roughly the western third of modern Guatemala City. The Valley of Guatemala is surrounded by hills that culminate in a string of lofty volcanoes t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Walters Art Museum
The Walters Art Museum, located in Mount Vernon-Belvedere, Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is a public art museum founded and opened in 1934. It holds collections established during the mid-19th century. The museum's collection was amassed substantially by major American art and sculpture collectors, a father and son: William Thompson Walters, (1819–1894), who began collecting when he moved to Paris as a nominal Southern/Confederate sympathizer at the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861; and Henry Walters (1848–1931), who refined the collection and made arrangements for the construction of a later landmark building to rehouse it. After allowing the Baltimore public to occasionally view his father's and his growing added collections at his West Mount Vernon Place townhouse/mansion during the late 1800s, he arranged for an elaborate stone palazzo-styled structure built for that purpose in 1905–1909. Located across the back alley, a block south of the Walters mansio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coyote
The coyote (''Canis latrans'') is a species of canis, canine native to North America. It is smaller than its close relative, the wolf, and slightly smaller than the closely related eastern wolf and red wolf. It fills much of the same ecological niche as the golden jackal does in Eurasia. The coyote is larger and more predatory and was once referred to as the American jackal by a behavioral ecologist. Other historical names for the species include the prairie wolf and the brush wolf. The coyote is listed as Least Concern, least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, due to its wide distribution and abundance throughout North America. The species is versatile, able to adapt to and expand into environments modified by humans. It is enlarging its range by moving into urban areas in the eastern U.S. and Canada. The coyote was sighted in eastern Panama (across the Panama Canal from their home range) for the first time in 2013. The coyote has 19 recognized sub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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